One of the most hilarious things to me is Americans whacking other countries for being corrupt. Russia is a favorite target, but the US abuses virtually every non-Western country for “corruption.” I’ve pointed out before that this is absurd. There is no more corrupt country in the world than the US. The bank bailouts were [...]

Reid said Obama could fare well nationally as an African-American candidate because he was “light-skinned” and didn’t speak with a “Negro dialect unless he wanted to have one.”

We know that at least this statement from the soon-to-be-released book Game Change is true, because Reid has already apologized for it.

Saturday, the majority leader said he had used “poor choice of words” and called Obama to apologize; the White House issued a statement indicating that the president had forgiven Reid.

Based on the review in The New York Times and on excerpts of the book that have been published by several news outlets, Game Change, by John Heilemann of New York Magazine and Mark Halperin of Time, apparently focuses almost exclusively on gossip and scandal about the 2008 presidential candidates and their spouses.

What I’ve mostly learned from reading excepts and quotes from the book is that many of the people who are running our country are frighteningly out of touch with modern American culture and language. No wonder they are governing as if we were living in the 19th century rather than the 21st!

Harry Reid is 70 years old–just 8 years older than I am. Yet he apparently uses the term “Negro” in private conversations. As I recall, that term began to be considered inappropriate in the late 1960s, in response to the “Black is Beautiful” movement.

I’m slow on the uptake about this whole “negro dialect” business but it’s a reminder of how weird political apologies get to be. It’s good that Reid apologized, but at the same time you can’t really apologize for being the sort of person who’d be inclined to use the phrase “negro dialect” and it’s more the idea of Reid being that kind of person that’s creepy here than anything else. Doesn’t seem likely to help Reid’s already troubled re-election campaign.

For once I have to agree with Yglesias. Creepy is a very good word for Reid’s behavior. And I recall that this is also the guy who complained aloud about the odor of working class tourists in DC in the summer. This man is creepy as hell. So why is he in charge of the U.S. Senate?

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), and a group of other senators who would back Hillary Clinton’s candidacy encouraged Obama to run for the White House as early as 2006. The concern over Clinton was that she would be a weak Democratic standard-bearer while Obama could energize the party. In late summer 2007, Schumer – using an Obama ally, Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO), as a back channel – pushed the candidate to “take a two-by-four to Hillary,” as the authors put it.

Schumer was sitting next to protege Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, gabbing away on his phone, when a flight attendant told him to shut it down.

Schumer turned off his phone, and then argued with the attendant that he was allowed to talk while the cabin door is open. He lost.

He then muttered his complaint about the flight attendant to Gillibrand.

A Republican aide on the plane, who overheard the powerful Democrat, tattled to Politico.com.

“The senator made an off-the-cuff comment under his breath that he shouldn’t have made, and he regrets it,” Schumer spokesman Brian Fallon told Anne Schroeder Mullins.

What is wrong with these people? Is it just because I live in a large urban area in the liberal Northeast and associate with relatively intelligent and sophisticated people that I find all this so shocking? I know we saw incredible misogyny from the news media during both the primary and general campaigns, but somehow it seems even more stunning to me coming from a supposedly liberal Democratic Senator.

Then there is the treatment of Elizabeth Edwards in the Heilemann-Halperin book. I have trouble buying the descriptions of Elizabeth because of the misogynistic nature of the language that the authors paraphrase and quote. For example,

In the wake of the first Enquirer story about Mr. Edwards’s affair, the authors write, Mrs. Edwards “was sobbing, out of control, incoherent,” and vented her fury on the “very aides who had kept the matter from mushrooming” further.

If “kept the matter from mushrooming” means concealing it from Elizabeth and talking about it behind her back, then her furious reaction seems understandable. Frankly, I think fury is understandable just in the context of learning your husband is cheating on you when you have cancer and that he has just flushed both of your futures down the toilet. Heileman and Halperin write that:

…while the aides had sympathy for Mrs. Edwards’s struggle with cancer, they regarded her as a badgering, often irrational presence on the campaign. “The nearly universal assessment among them,” Mr. Halperin and Mr. Heilemann write of the Edwards aides, “was that there was no one on the national stage for whom the disparity between public image and private reality was vaster or more disturbing. What the world saw in Elizabeth: a valiant, determined, heroic everywoman. What the Edwards insiders saw: an abusive, intrusive, paranoid, condescending crazywoman.”

Apparently there is more gossip about the Clintons in the book than about any of the other participants in the campaign. So what else is new?

Oh, and by the way, the authors of Game Change describe the Obama’s marriage as idyllic.

I am not sure about anything in this book. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t.

But the point is obvious. The only people coming across well are BO and Michelle.

Couldn’t it be an object of the hacks writing the book, and their sources, to drive a wedge between the Hillary grassroots and the politicians who supported her?? To isolate Hillary supporters and make them feel helpless?

Politicians are all jerks. We know that. But the book is crap, and we also know that.

This book just reeks of the sophomoric coverage we saw in 2008. The accusations against Bill, reviving the charges of rac*sm, with anonymous sources that are 2, 3 or 4 people removed is garbage. I hope it sinks like a stone.

LOL Pelosi’s was about “Know Your Power”
I have thought that was hilarious juxtaposed to the Democrats having both houses of Congress and the WH and still whining about the GOP not letting them do anything.

I know a ton of Obots who will love to use this book to justify the opinion that Obama has the most stable personal life and therefore was the best choice to run as the Democratic nominee. There are probably excerpts that will justify their CDS and PDS and their “Clintons are racists!” opinions. The book is a piece of garbage that will entertain the Obots and give them something to chuckle over.

I think it was written because it would sell and not really to boost anyone… Heilemann and Halperin are too wimpy to go after Obama directly, but I don’t see how the book really boosts his appeal much. People who are sticking by Obama at this point would likely not be affected by a gossipy book like this one way or the other, and people who are wary of him right now and think he’s a sellout probably aren’t that impressed to hear that behind the scenes the person who was pushing for Obama to run was coming from the POV that he’s “light-skinned” and “doesn’t speak a Negro dialect.”

What I find so puzzling is how they want Obama to be so historical because he is the first black president. But, no one is allowed to talk about it, or make any reference to the history of race relations here. All that’s allowed is: This is historic.

I’m also confused about what happened to his white side, and his all white upbringing. He has no black relatives here.

BB: their attitude is not really surprising if you think about it. The same neanderthal behavior we saw with Leahy, et. al. last year against Hillary is reflected in their retro perspectives. They’ve been living in a bubble waaay too long. It’s embarrassing.

When I heard the two-by-four, I immediately thought of Schumer’s bitch comment to the flight attendant.

As for Reid, I added the word “duplicitous” to the word “creep” yesterday when the crap he said started leaking, and pointed out Reid’s exact words he used publicly to describe Hillary and Obama March 2008

“Every issue, even though they talk, they are basically the same on every issue,”

“I think this has been a great campaign. The Democratic problem will be over before the convention, and I think it will all work out well for America,”

“Now we’re down to two — two of the smartest people, not just in the Senate, but in the country,”

And that was just reacting to his backstabbing! When I found out what Reid said and apologized for about Obama, my reaction was that Joe Wilson’s “you lie” was more honest than Reid’s creepy comments. Joe Wilson yelled what he did in public for all to see– we all could see for ourselves and come to our own conclusions. Reid is in a leadership position of a party calling everybody RAYCIST.

As for the stuff about Elizabeth, as much as they were trying to make her look like the devil in the story, some of the stuff that’s been leaked here really backfires IMHO (though I like Elizabeth so I may be biased), esp. these parts–

During the 2004 race, Elizabeth badgered and berated John’s advisers around the clock. She called Nick Baldick, his campaign manager, an idiot. She accused David Axelrod, his (and later Obama’s) media consultant, of lying to her and insisted that he be stripped of the responsibility for making the campaign’s TV ads.

In the wake of the Hunter flare-up and the recurrence of Elizabeth’s cancer, the dynamic between husband and wife shifted in the context of the campaign. He was even more deferential to her; she was even more assertive, pushing John hard on policy, always to the left. In 2004, Edwards’s campaign had been sunny, centrist, and thematic. Elizabeth prodded him toward being hotter, more populist, more sharply ideological and anti-Establishment.

Though I like Elizabeth, even though she learned the hard way in 2008 about some of the choices she made, so I may be biased. But it always seem to me all these Witchy characterizations of Hillary and now Elizabeth are always strong women reacting to morons.

It really just blows my mind that Obamabot idiots are running around race baiting based off bs when there really is a problem with retrograde lunacy covering sex and race and god knows what else in this party. I mean, it’s 2010, this guy is the leader of a major political party, he lives in DC, and–I don’t even know what to say. But hey, why worry? It’s only bad if Obama can make political hay off it, tough luck on everyone else who has to deal with it. And yeah, I can believe the Schumer thing because of the flight attendant incident, and because of the way they all ostracized Hillary when she got there and she had to fetch them damn coffee.

As far of the rest of it, ugh. EE is a cold, erratic bitch, so is Palin, and dumb too, so is Hill, and calculating/incompetent too. Wow, they’re all the same person and this familiar stereotypical portrait could be filled in in my sleep using Mad Libs. It’s stupid gosspi from unnamed sources who happen to work in Democratic and Republican politics, what a shock that this is how they feel with their retrograde attitudes and beliefs and inability to deal with women. Lol Meet Harry Reid and the next generation of Harry Reids. GBA.

I couldn’t have expressed it better, Seriously. It’s all so depressing. We have these backward hicks running the country and woman haters like Halperin and David Shuster “reporting” the “news.” No wonder the country is going to hell in a handbasket.

I also don’t like how the Dems now think that Obama accepts Biden’s apology, Reid’s apology, etc and that’s enough to sweep their BS under the carpet. “Obama accepts apology” doesn’t make what Biden or Reid ok. If they were just pundits on MSNBC, Al Sharpton would be trying to get them fired. Joe and Harry made really asinine, dated observations about identity politics from a very calculated and patronizing POV — that’s putting the nicest possible construction on things and not getting into whether they are prejudiced or not — and they get to retain leadership positions within the party, even get promoted. Well, here’s hoping Harry loses his.

I agree too. This isn’t about Obama. It’s about racism period. This may be unconscious and inadvertant racism, but it needs to be called out. Obama can’t absolve people who use it. It offends millions of people, whether he minds it or not.

Though I agree with your assessment of the sexist nature of the jerks in the MSM, and it being the primary cause of trashing every assertive woman, I have a slightly different take on EE.

Halperin is a jerk, along with the rest of his cohorts. But Elizabeth Edwards and Michelle Obama’s behavior during the primary was ugly. There is a subtle difference between them and Hillary. Michelle like the high flying lifestyle. Elizabeth wanted to live her ambitions through her husband.

I respect Hillary because her ambition centers on what she herself can and will do. She will not hide behind a stepford wife mask. She takes the heat. That’s why Hillary has furthered the cause of women by miles and miles, and Michelle and EE haven’t done shit for it.

Slip the modern mask away and Elizabeth and Michelle are two very old-fashioned women in that sense, finding meaning through being the ‘wife of someone.’

Wow. Well said. I’ve never read anyone compare Elizabeth and Michelle their appearance, their personality and their lifestyle choices are so different. But I definitely agree that Hillary stands in a category of her own while Elizabeth and Michelle fit the more traditional roles of what a wife is supposed to do, say, and act like – at least in front of the cameras.

Michelle doesn’t seem to have any political ambition of her own. She enjoys the perks of being a politician’s wife – being a high profile celebrity, the private jet, the clothes, the parties – she’s the typical politician’s wife. Elizabeth has played the role of supporting wife for most of her marriage – maybe even against her will. I saw early on that John walked all over her and milked her illness for everything it was worth when he announced he was running for president again. However, I never imagined how horrible he really treated Elizabeth.

Hillary and Bill’s relationship is probably the most complex because Hillary is the most independent of the three women. Hillary created a political career for herself both from her career as a lawyer and her experiences and many ups and downs as first lady. She wasn’t going to spend her life always walking two steps behind Bill or living in her husband’s shadow. She proved the naysayers like Chris Matthews who think she only got where she is today because of pity that she is just as smart and capable as her husband.

Bill and Hillary are each others intellectual and professional equals and it drives peudo-journalists like the authors of Game Change to their CDS insanity. They have to continue to invent sh*t about Bill’s libido as a reminder to themselves that Hillary is a bad wife who can’t satisfy her wild Bubba husband.

I agree with Silent Kate down thread that these type of men envy women who can stand on their own without a man or have men in their lives that support their ambitions and don’t feel the need to hold them back from their own careers and success outside of the family. Elizabeth’s real emotions of anger and rage probably surprised them because for the first time it revealed Elizabeth as more than just a plump, middle-aged wife who took her husband’s abuse and philandering without a peep. For me, her act of ripping her blouse open was very symbolic, like prisoner who finally had her last straw and was ready to break out of the cage her husband had built for her and used to advance his own career. All I can say is that I hope Elizabeth has learned something from the last several years and even though she won’t get a divorce, that she is learning to live for herself and not for her husband and his own narcissistic ambitions.

I get where you’re coming from and even agree to some extent, I just end up with different conclusions I guess.

In the case of Hillary v. Elizabeth, I saw that more as two strong women going toe to toe, with their strengths and weaknesses on display, and John being largely irrelevant in that battle. Elizabeth tried to use her own appeal to neutralize Hillary’s, trying to create the impression of how she was happier for the choices she made about her career and her marriage and how Hillary is not really feminist enough, etc. Worse yet she trashed Hillary all while knowing about John’s affair and the baby. It was a high stakes gamble to go forth with a campaign knowing all that in today’s political environment, but also all while having to battle incurable cancer and make plans always thinking about her life without her in it.

Elizabeth’s arguments against Hillary ultimately failed because their foundation was shaky (and stuff like that matters when you are not part of the Good Old Boy Network where it doesn’t matter whether you have a leg to stand on or not). She’s learned the hard way about the choices she’s made and she’s taking the heat for it.

But,the way she went about the 2008 election cycle was the bathwater– I don’t want to throw the baby out with it. I still like HER, or rather there are still things I admire about her. I think she’s smart and tough and has been an outspoken wife rather than a second fiddle. Lots of people appreciated John’s candidacies less because of him, sometimes even in spite of his smarmier moments, and more because of her being such a tour de force on the campaign trail. She knew how to speak substance and speak it from the populist left and really demolish the GOP by going after their BAD IDEAS (qualities which are all sorely lacking in most Dems today, aside from the Clintons.) There was always something a bit forced about John that people couldn’t necessarily pinpoint other than to say “I like Elizabeth more than him!”

I hope she’s working on moving past John and his ego dysfunction and reaching the level of self-possession and contentedness that shows in Hillary’s face. She deserves that, and her kids deserve to see her like that.

I will say this though, I hope it wasn’t Elizabeth’s idea to have John say he and Barack are change and Hillary’s yesterdays news. It seemed more like one of John’s own stupid ideas, but I think there’s a possibility Elizabeth advised him to do it, judging from the kinds of comments she made about Hillary during the campaign. If so, my respect for her intelligence would be mitigated by her inability to apply that intelligence when push comes to shove and it matters most.

As for Michelle, I’m not a fan and especially don’t care for the fluffy tacky O “Jackie O with a tan” routine that began to emerge over the course of the campaign. I’ve seen glimpses of a more interesting side of Michelle before and even after she got the stepford makeover. One of her best moments as First Lady was with the London schoolgirls early on. She struck me as compelling there and I was ready to welcome more of that side of Michelle, despite having misgivings about her during the campaign. But, since then she hasn’t really used her platform for much of anything. As a symbol she gives some hope to young girls who can identify with her though, so there’s that.

As for the Michelle-Barack dynamic. I suspect a considerable chunk of Obama’s voters voted for him more because of Michelle’s speeches than his. She’s a better communicator than he is, imho. Obama just approaches every speaking opportunity as if it’s another pointless assignment he has to bs his way through. Regardless of whether I agree with Michelle when she’s speaking and even though I often did not during the election, I usually know what her point is and don’t find her lifeless.

All this to say–I wouldn’t put Elizabeth in the same category as Hillary or put Michelle in the same category as either of them. They are all their own persons/First Ladies. For that matter, I used to not be able to stand Laura Bush until she started speaking up about Burma, and then I was really shocked because I *liked* her in those moments a lot–I realized right then and there that I had made a mistake and not looked deeply enough beyond the media’s messaging of her as a traditional first lady who knows her place (not that the MSM would say it explicitly but it was pretty strongly implied.) I still am not a Laura Bush fan, but I see her differently now–I see more layers to her– than I once did.

Bottom line: I’m over puttign Elizabeth, Michelle, Hillary, or Laura into these tiny boxes that the media wants us to put them in. None of these boxes really captures the whole picture of who they are as individuals. I think all of these women are infinitely more interesting than their husbands, with the exception of Bill, who is equally as fascinating as Hillary.

I remember Elizabeth backing Hillary’s health care plan more than Obama’s plan and that issue is of large importance to Elizabeth. If she did influence John’s decision to back Obama, it would be based on who she and John thought would be most likely to give him top position in their administration. They must have really been blind if they believed that they could cover the affair up. Obama, Hillary, and most political insiders probably knew about the affair and rumors of a love child long before the general public. If Obama promised the Edwards anything like VP consideration, it was a flat out lie used to get Edwards’ endorsement to increase his momentum.

I don’t think Elizabeth backed JE’s endorsement of 0bama. Remember, she wasn,t there by his side when he endorsed the One. I always thought that she preferred Hillary, especially when she realized that Hillary was not going to get the nomination because of the corruption factor. She alligned John with 0bama to hopefully ease out Hillary early on, thinking JE would prevail, but when JE was toast, she knew Hillary was the superior person and candidate. She knew the depts of depravity Axelrove and advisors at this point.

I am wishing I was wearing a hat right now so I could doff it in admiration. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I’m over using these women as proxies to beat up on because we don’t like their husbands. Wasn’t there a stereotype of Hill as calculating Lady Macbeth who lived through and tried to control her husband? We don’t know these women. Maybe they disagree with their husbands on everything. Maybe they never wanted this. Maybe they do and why is that wrong. The only crime they commit is to support their families and not be Hillary. By that standard, we all fail. After watching what Hillary went through and how strong the blowback was, it would take someone extraordinary to put themselves out there as strongly as she did, when they’ll get attacked no matter what.

Halperin and Co. may be jerks but the article re Edwards sounds just about right to me: how relieved the remaining campaign aids must have been when the media finally decided to speak the truth re the Edwards affair – and the two phony megalomaniacs finally had to bury their White House dream.

The whole story is unblievably yukky. Despite all the lurid stuff, Elizabeth Edwards still couldn’t give up her celebrity life. As if the country needed John Edwards in the White House. Give me a break! Scary, scary, scary. And so were the Edwardsfans who voted for him mainly because they “loved” his wife and turned her into a saint when she was anything but…. Just like the Obamafolks who turned him into their messiah.

Who lived in a larger state of cognitive dissonance. John or Elizabeth. I would say it is a perfect draw.

Oh, and talking about stepford wives.
Remember when The campaign aids of both candidates, Edwards and Obama, gossiped that Elizabeth Edwards (and also Michelle Obama) spoke about Hillary in the most horrible fashion. It was so easy for me to believe that. And Later when Hillary visited the Edwardses his aids said that EE was warming up to Hillary. Again, Give me a break, Mr. and Mrs. Edwards. I only wish Hillary never bothered about these two fakes.

Have you ever heard Hillary Clinton say anything nasty about another woman? Politically or otherwise? Not me. Never.
Hillary had ambitions, she worked hard to succeed and she always did it with a lot of class. As First Lady, as senator … always.

btw. another stepford wife was Arianna Huffington. Her husband was no Bill Clinton and AH who had also White House dreams would never forgive the Clintons for that. But she is still working on her revenge. Has there ever been a nastier pundit on TV or on paper? It was the constant Hillary bashing that helped her set up her Huffington website, a comfy place for the Clinton haters.

so many of the articles in the past two years in “vanity fair” fell into the gossipy, quotes for unidentified insiders that made me let my subscription lapse. i’d say a book of this caliber falls into the same category and i’m going to allow it to die a normal quick and quiet death without spending too much time listening to gossip.

as far as using the term “negro” it is one of the options on the census questionnaire. older folks grew up with the term and feel more comfortable with it. i don’t, but that’s the justification i’ve heard.

worse than the term is that he thinks that some sort of black dialect is the standard. wth is he talking about “negro dialect”? What politician has any sort of black american slang delivery? Reid is a freak.

personally, i’m not giving credence to any of it. i wonder if reid remembers saying anything of the sort but wanted to nip off criticism at the bud. if i choose not to believe the sleeze about clinton and palin, i also must discount anything written about reid. and yes, in the middle of the 60 mins report, i asked my husband if he noticed anything about the overwhelming slams at palin and clinton. unfortunately, he went off on some other criticism. i am verny disappointed in cbs and 60 minutes for this report.

These terms: badgering, out of control, crazy, and irrational
are often used to describe women who dare to have opinions or show emotions outside the boundaries of what a Stepford wife is expected to show. I suppose this is why we rarely hear Michelle speak up as much as she did in the early days of her husband’s campaign. Silence, gardening, and shopping = idyllic marriage.

Sarah Palin was an unprepared, uninformed Vice Presidential candidate who repeatedly made false statements in public, according to a top McCain campaign aide.

In a 60 Minutes segment based on John Heilemann’s and Mark Halperin’s new book, “Game Change,” McCain’s senior adviser Steve Schmidt recounts some devastating anecdotes about Palin from the campaign trail.

Most troubling to the campaign, Schmidt said, was Palin’s horrendous performance during prep sessions for her debate with then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.).

I seem to remember her kicking Biden’s butt in that debate so her horrendous performance was pretty good.

Schmidt is an ass. Sarah talks about him and that debate prep in her book. They gave her index cards with questions, and a selection of BS nonanswers on the back. She balked. She wanted to know why she couldn’t answer the damn question. Gee, what a silly idea! Stupid flighty woman, STFU and let us tell you how this is done – and being honest isn’t part of it. They locked her up in a dark hotel room (ignoring her complaints about the drawn blinds) for days with 5 guys pounding at her, and she got pissed off.

(Horrors! She didn’t meekly submit! She must be irrational!) At one point Schmidt was yelling at her WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! when the answer she just gave was one of her “approved” answers on the damn card they wrote for her!

It came to a head when Schmidt’s fat, smoking ass told her he was calling in a nutritionist because he said she had to “get off that Atkins diet.” She informed him she was not ON the Atkins diet, other than keeping a few of their energy bars around for snacks.

Don’t you know what a high protein diet does? he asked, ignoring what I had just said. He then launched into a discussion of nutrition physiology, holding forth on the importance of carbohydrates to cognitive connections and blah-blah-blah…

Sarah finally got her way, told them to get her the HELL out of the stuffy hotel room, and they went to John’s Arizona ranch (Cindy McCain’s suggestion)and did prep outside with one of the team who actually liked Sarah, rather than asshat bully Schmidt. The rest is history – she kicked Biden’s ass.

She was somewhat aghast that this fat, chain-smoking pinhead was lecturing an amazingly healthy athlete and marathoner on her diet.

But he had a penis, ya know, so he is the fucking expert on all. If you read her book, the condescension of some of the staffers is just sick. She’s very nice about it, actually, but you can read between the lines.

Wonk posted before that Schmidt actually claims that Sarah kept calling Biden “O’Biden” in debate prep, and therefore he instructed her to use the “May I call you Joe” line. Lol Obviously, Steve has met enough Obots to believe there’s a market out there for his transparently implausible bs.

Actually, the “O’Biden” thing was a slip of the tongue and common running joke among the McCain staffers. Palin did slip up and say it once during debate prep, and they had a laugh. But Schmidt did not “instruct” her to ask Joe if she could call him Joe – that was another staffer who suggested it.

That’s not Steve’s version. Lol Palin is so stupid–SO STUPID–she simply couldn’t master the name and wouldn’t stop saying O’Biden. Everyone was calling him in desperation and despair–until they finally hit upon the avoidance masterstroke. Amazingly, she was able to rally and actually master a 5 word sentence–go Sarah. Lol

Seriously: Schmidt didn’t say that he was the one who brought up the “Can I call you Joe” line–he is specific to say that it wasn’t his suggestion–in fact the way he describes it, other people rose up in unison one of the times she said O’Biden and told her to ask if she could just call him Joe. But, the way Schmidt talked about it overall it was that the debate prep was a disaster, she couldn’t even get Joe’s name right, but he took over and she ended up “holding up more than her own.”

Did you read the whole book? Like it? I received a nook for Christmas and am thinking about getting her book on it. That way I won’t be tarred and feathered here in the sunny Bay Area for reading “that damn bimbo’s book.”

How do you like your nook? I am thinking of getting one but they seem to be unavailable. Now I am waiting to see what Jobs is planning for the islate/tablet. I liked the Nook feature of being able to do marginalia and highlight passages. How is it working out for you?

I’m actually enjoying my nook, though I’ve only had it less than a week and haven’t done any highlighting or note taking yet.

I am reading an ebook borrowed from my local library on it, which I thought was cool, and I bought Barbara Kingsolver’s latest (Lacuna) to read next. It’s fun, but takes some getting used to. I loaded the two books and then put it down and stared at it for a few days. When it didn’t do anything suspicious, I started reading and got hooked.

One thing it’s weak on is organizing books. It holds around 1500, but as far as I can tell, there’s no folder system, which is almost unbelievable. So if you have a lot of books, browsing would be a drag. But if you know what you wanted to find, the search function is good. I’m curious about the mac tablet, too, but I don’t like reading on a LCD very much, and I’m really liking the “do one thing well” aspect of a dedicated reader.

One more thing: I had worked up a good case of nerves by reading a ton of bad reviews on the web criticizing the design, the screens, the page turning speed, faulty downloading, etc. My nook has worked beautifully in all regards, so I’m pretty happy with it. And digital lending from my library is a nice bonus, too.

I was particularly taken aback by the “revelations” against Elizabeth Edwards. The writing came across as an over-emotional rant, but more significantly, what purpose does it serve to paint such a dreadful image of a living person while trying to fight cancer? All that writing represented filler to add pages and was completely unnecessary. Those aids “kept it from mushrooming”….was this before Hunter was pregnant with his baby?

This whole book seems to be intended as a way for a few people to spread their less than favorable impression on those who were pushed aside. Justification, if you will. And, the release is timed to try to distract from the HCR mess, and to help Obama with his falling poll numbers.

The campaign will forever be history, we don’t really have any good reason to view it through the eyes of these two reporters when we witnessed enough of it ourselves.

Daschle didn’t get much mention when he takes the lion’s share of credit for being the one to convince Obama to run now….before he had enough of a voting record to attract questions about where he stood on things.

This is all so despicable and depressing. I live in the Bay Area and I’m thinking of voting against. That kind of backstabbing toward a woman of Hillary’s stature is intolerable to me, especially when you consider the caliber of her opponent. Too bad I can’t vote against Pelosi. But if she has a challenger with half a chance I may volunteer on their campaign.

I am a no vote on Boxer. She has become DC arrogant and obnoxious. I am working to help Carly Firorina. Boxer will do a smear campaign against her but I do not care. I am also supporting Meg Whitman for Gov. I am not registering as a Republican but I am voting against the Dems—CA is a mess and the Dems have been in control since Reagan so they are responsible. They are SAC arrogant and obnoxious.

I think they are probably *quite* pleased with themselves. These racist morons just wanted a black president, they got one, and they’re satisfied. They don’t care how crappy a president he is, just that he’s black.

Reid’s remarks were true (these guys had to hit a few accurate statements). What surprises me, though, is his use of the term “negro.” That makes me think he really doesn’t have a raycist edge to him…if he did, he’d be more up on the terms that are used. Someone through the years would have told him that “negro” is no longer used.

Yeah, it’s as if he’s lived underground for 40 years and Obama is the first African American he’s ever interacted with. Which makes me wonder all kinds of things about what the hell’s going on in the Democratic Party. And as far as “light skinned,” there are no words for the Majority Leader opining that light skin makes an African American politician more politically acceptable than someone with darker skin. No words.

So how much did they pay Schmid for his interview? I really hate it when people who earned big bucks for doing highly confidential work like a presidential campaign use the experience to attack the people who gave them opportunity. That is sleazy at its most slimiest.

I am thinking Harry Reid apologized so quickly in order to add creditability to the stinking book. The media whores are just biding their time, soon they will start the endless Hillary and Bill bashing.

I am so angry that those pukes managed to cheated us and America out of probably what would have been one of our greatest presidents. And now they are being kicked off the ride they thought they controlled and we are all so screwed – thanks Schumer, wish I had a 2 by 4 and a few minutes alone with you and Claire McCaskill.

Between the excerpt in the New York magazine and the 60 minutes interview of Mutt and Jeff, the authors, not to mention Steve Schmidt as well I am only to believe three things. First, Hillary is over the top obnoxious, so much so she was working very hard on her transition to the White House before the general election had even begun. That must have been what she was doing when I saw her campaigning hard in Indiana. I also learned that Elizabeth Edwards is one crazy “Bitch”. Finally, I learned that Sarah Palin is just plain stupid. What do these three people have in common, oh yeah, they are all women. This book is nothing but an all out attack on the three most powerful women of recent times. We should all be appalled. Where is “NOW” or “Emily’s List”? Hillary and Sarah we know hold great power if and when they choose to use it. You might think Elizabeth isn’t powerful but she has been a huge advocate for health care. It’s obvious to me that these men have a “Peter Principle” problem. They have obviously reached the level of their own competence to the point where they are now incompetent and they so envy those women that don’t need a “Peter” to succeed in life.

Excellent summary! I was appalled by the comments to the NY Mag excerpts on EE – not just in Politico, but mostly in B0botland. I can never get used to the degree of misogyny of the so called “progressives”

In Oblog land the first thing you do when things don’t go your way is blame the most vulnerable person in the entire story. Don’t you know it was her fault that John had an affair and his campaign failed. If only that BITCH kept quiet and let Edwards keep Axelrod on his campaign and didn’t whine about him impregnating another woman and planning his wife’s funeral while in another woman’s bed then maybe things wouldn’t have “mushroomed” the way it did.

You’d think they’d tone it down just one time, since they consistently deny that’s what’s motivating them, but they just can’t help themselves. And why bother, it doesn’t cost those absolutely indispensible women’s votes.

The reason I believe the Schumer story: back in 2001, the Bushies were inventing one ‘gate” after the other to get Bill Clinton’s numbers down and maybe gain something n the process. In the Pardongate, Carter joined enthusiastically while Schumer chimed in, calling Clinton “stupid”. Hillary was in her freshman year as NY senator at the time, with Bill leading the state Dem party. I never forgave Schumer that, never voted for him since.

Funny how the Enquirer appears as the only responsible journalism in the bunch, huh? Alter tried silencing them – but their story was documented, so they went with it.
Now about Halperin & other one collecting anonymous paraphrased quotes for book – this doesn’t pass the Enquirer smell test

I expect these 2 to be nominated for a Pulitzer or maybe The National Medal of Honor by the end of the year. Bet they spent the 2 or 3 weeks on Figi to get this book written. Its so inspiring for writing, just ask Obama.

OK. Call me a simpleton, but *how* is Reid’s comment different than Biden’s (which was so unacceptable that he is now VP of the USA), and how is that more of an indictment of Reid than of the electorate, who clearly found Obama more palatable than, say, Flava Flav? Reid and Biden were only describing Obamaism from a slightly different angle than Mike Nichols and Elaine May did back in the 50s when they described Hyde Park thusly: “Black and white together, shoulder to shoulder against the lower classes.” It was *always* about class, and color was an ugly disguise for that.

Reid didn’t say anything racist. He told the truth. The word Negro is actually used by many older white folks AND black folks alike. It is not a racist term to most people put here in the country who are mystified about what you are supposed to call people. African American, I refuse to say because it is ridiculously long and “black” is offensive to another whole bunch of people. Give people a break, if black people can’t even agree what to call themselves why should everyone else get blamed for not using the current PC term?

But the truth is that Reid is right. Had Obama been darker and sounded like some Black people( Donna B comes to mind actually) do he would never be elected. Is that because the country is racist? I don’t know, but I know it is true non the less.

Same here. Completely agree. I can easily imagine that these kind of conversations re Obama were going on in the congress, the media, etc.

The political correctness these days can really be too much at times. I personally don’t use the term “negro” and never have.. Recently I heard that “person of color” was the correct term to use. I bet some “person of color” wouldn’t like that either. So what should one say? I think lots of “Blacks” (hope that is ok?) don’t particular like “African-American either.”

btw. When Colin Powell was SOS and traveled the world I read that in Europe people were v. surprised when they found out that he was supposed to be AA. And you know what, I didn’t know that either when I first heard of him and saw a pic. And that is a fact.

No doubt, Obama’s lighter skin and speech worked in his favour. And the same goes for Colin P.

I consider the term a slur and offensive as much as if Harry Reid were to say “Hillary is a man-like woman who doesn’t speak bitch unless she wants to,” but even putting that aside and just chalking it up to his using dated terminology, what it reveals is that Harry Reid and the Obamacrats were running a very cynical campaign while pretending to be hope and change and everything nice and while dismissing anyone who doubted their intentions as raycist bumpkins.

Can I ask a question some may think naive? When did “Negro” become the new N-word. Because I have to admit, I didn’t get the memo. Yes, it feels dated, and talking about someone’s race is always awkward. But when did it become offensive?

I was surprised enough in the last couple years with Obama running to learn that the term “African American” was back in vogue. I’m 51 and remember distinctly (in the 70’s?) the message that the people formerly known as AA’s wanted to be called Black. So I’ve been referring to Black people since then (sparingly, of course, since what difference does it make anyway), only to be mildly corrected in conversation when a younger acquaintance would only say AA.

Is it because I’m from California that I don’t know this stuff?

I’m not looking for excuses for Reid, believe me. He deserves any Karma he gets. But for Pete’s sake, it’s not like he pulled an Imus.

And I’ll hurry to add that I do understand why the entirety of the quote is offensive. It’s specifically the objection to the word Negro that caught be by surprise, both here and in the recent census gaffe.

It’s offensive only insofar as Reid and Biden were referring to the racism of the white electorate. A Black candidate needs to qualm the fears of an anxious white electorate–he musn’t be one of “those” Blacks who seem strange to middle-class whites for whatever reason (dialect, family structure, career trajectory, nose shape.).

why is it considered a slur and who decided it was? And do we really have to pull a Jesse Jackson JR on people who never got the memo?
I don’t use the word but I can’t judge older Americans who do. Isn’t that the same sort of guilty white liberalism that got Obama so many elitist white supporters in the first place?
Actually I consider them bigger racists than Reid.

The term is definitely cringe-worthy and hasn’t been appropriate in fifty years. But the substance of his remark is no different than Joe Biden’s. The latter’s choice of the term ‘African American’ can’t disguise that.

TeresaINPa, on January 11th, 2010 at 9:29 am Said:
why is it considered a slur and who decided it was? And do we really have to pull a Jesse Jackson JR on people who never got the memo?
I don’t use the word but I can’t judge older Americans who do. Isn’t that the same sort of guilty white liberalism that got Obama so many elitist white supporters in the first place?
Actually I consider them bigger racists than Reid.

The memo I was referring to is the fact that blacks weren’t allowed into the ‘priesthood’ in the Mormon religion until 1979 and some official memo was sent out worldwide.

What most Latter-day Saints have been taught in church and believe as truth.
Most Latter-day Saints are fully aware that black men were excluded from the priesthood from its inception till 1978. It was largely taught in the Church that up through the 1980s blacks were denied the priesthood because they were from the lineage of Cain, who was cursed with a black skin after killing his brother Abel. People were born black because they were less valiant in the pre-existence.

The ban on blacks holding the priesthood was reversed due to revelation received by the prophet Spencer W. Kimball in 1978 and was not due to the civil rights movement.

As to the word ‘negro’ it is offensive and has been known for several decades. As to if it is ‘appropriate’, not if you intend to have positive relations with the person you are having the discourse with or if you are intent on causing conflict (now that you know it is seen as a slur and impolite).

NO, it is NOT offensive. It is just old fashioned and out of favor. It is not a slur, it is just a word.
The silly guilty white liberalism is why we have an empty suit in the white house.
Now I will admit that someone can say the word Negro with a certain tone that makes it offensive… but please, there are real offensive words out there to worry about.

PS… I live for several years with a Black man. If you got his whole family in a room there would be many different opinions on this topic.
My opinion is that they is one of the silliest discussions we have had on this site. But then all my liberal white guilt was burned up last year. It used to be that there wasn’t a race card played I didn’t agree with. Now, sorry but I’m not buying in to that crap. Negro is just a word and if African Americans/Black people/people of color say Reid is correct, why argue? I think he is right, Obama with very dark skin and a strong southern black dialect would not ever have won.

During the American Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, some African American leaders in the United States objected to the word…because they associated the word Negro with the long history of slavery, segregation, and discrimination that treated African Americans as second class citizens, or worse. During the 1960s Negro came to be considered an ethnic slur.[2] The word is now considered archaic, is not commonly used, and is widely considered a racist slur.

Thank you. I personally consider use of the term to be ignorant and insensitive. According to some commenters, the word is used by many people in some areas of the country. I live in New England, which is pretty liberal and also very ethnically diverse. I think the tendency is to describe people in words of their own choosing.

I grew up in the Midwest and most of my family still lives there. I don’t know anyone there who would use the words “Negro” or “colored.” I suppose there are people who do, but I haven’t encountered them. If someone used these terms in conversation with me, I would probably ask them not to.

I am with you.. I was born in the Midwest but have lived in Texas for over 2 decades. The term is offensive to me. If an older person uses it, I would weigh it with the context of how they are using it and their life experience before jumping to conclusions. For someone in a leadership position in the Democratic party, I find it a very bad sign if he did not get the memo about the term.

I’ve lived in the South all my life. It’s been many decades since I’ve heard that word spoken. The word of preference is “black” or the abbreviation, “AA”, like every where else in the country. However, I’m not naive about the racism that exists here and every where else. Nor the sexism, for that matter.

In many respects my southern state (black percentage here is around 23%, and 34% in my city) has handled intergration rather well. Nevada has a low percentage of blacks, 8%, and twice as many hispanics. Reid could learn as few things from us.

The Clintons and their supporters are the ones who got crucified for saying the facts. Reid is an ignoramus and what he said, at best, is OLD POLITICS and reeks of a cynicism that he and the rest of the Obamacrats pretended that they were so above–they were all about hope and change and new kinda politics and anyone who questioned their intentions was raycist.

Reid isn’t Sue from “Glee.” He doesn’t get paid to bloviate his ignorant opinions. What if he had said, “America hates women candidates. They won’t elect them, especially if they’re not hot. Hillary won’t go over, face facts.” That may be true, polling data may bear that out, but is that an acceptable thing for a party leader to say? Does that send the message that this party is committed to equality? Not to me. I’m pretty sure a lot of people would find that unacceptable. As freaky as it is that Reid is scrutinizing Obama’s skin color, he’s also sending the message that the people who run this party and dole out the money and the support don’t want you to apply unless you fit certain criteria. Yeah, they’re blaming it on the voters (please understand, you don’t make US uncomfortable, we’re not scared of you, it’s the voters). It’s not an acceptable message for the party to be sending on any level.

The D party is not committed to equality. A party that celebrates a perfect storm of misogyny, race-baiting, and ageism and characterizes it as the electorate being uniquely “inspired” and “energized” is not a party that is about living and letting others live.

The problem with the Obama party was never that there are some bad seeds in every bunch, it’s that the party leadership never had the kind of integrity it would have taken to say that the kinds of arguments that prominent Obama supporters were making for their support of Obama and opposition to Clinton were not things that the Democratic party stood for. Bill Maher dragged out Hillary’s Living History and read from the page where she says Bill fesses up to her about Monica Lewinsky. Hillary wrote that she couldn’t breathe when he told her. Maher contrasted this to how cool and calm and wonderful Obama is and how that’s what we want in a leader. Not some old irrational woman who feels overwhelmed at the moment when her husband admits a betrayal. If only it were limited to the Mahers, that would be one thing, but it wasn’t. What Hillary went up against–Harry Reid nor Joe Biden nor Barack Obama would have been able to withstand, they would have dropped out of the race before Iowa.

Yep. And if she had written that she had taken it calmly, she’d either be a cold-hearted $&@)& or a liar. No matter what you do, you can’t win. God forbid she had said she felt as if she’d been through the Bataan death march.

I totally agree with your assessment. This isn’t about what a few ignorant elderly people may say when talking about African Americans. This is about a man who is the Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate–one of the most powerful members of the Democratic Party. He doesn’t get a pass from me for using an ignorant, outdated ethnic term that has been considered offensive since at least the late ’60s.

I worked in an office at Harvard in 1967-68. That was right around the time of the “Black is Beautiful” movement. There were two African American women in my office, and once I used the word “Black,” and they were offended. They said preferred the word “Negro,” and they also felt it was better not to use those words as a descriptor of a person at all. I was confused by that. But that was a time of change.

They do say that women can’t win. They do say that women with certain voice qualities can’t win. But in Hillarys case they were wrong and in Obama’s I think they were right. I voted for Jesse Jackson twice, but I do not think he could have won in today’s atmosphere. There is a backlash against political correctness and it is mainly because everything everyone says is jumped on as suspect.

Yeah, they do say women can’t win. They do say you need Certain charicteristics. And we’re not like, “Awesome! That is so honest! So un-PC! Thanks for telling the truth! Thanks for not being full of shit!” Why didn’t we? Why didn’t we throw Obama a parade for saying “sweetie”? Can’t get more un-PC than that. Why didn’t we make anti-PC heroes for any guy brave enough to declare, “Hey, I like sweetie. Ma’mn is cumbersome in my mouth. Ask people what they prefer and respect their wishes? Fuck that. I get to decide and if they don’t like it, grow up and stop being so damn PC.” “sweetie” or “periodically the claws come out” are not at all offensive to many people, they just don’t get what all the fuss is about. So I guess I have to consider if I was just mean and unfair expecting people to adapt to new standards. Ted Kennedy grew up in an era when sexual harassment was fine too, so I guess that’s just how it is. They see us as secretaries and sex objects, and we have to accept that. Sucks for us, I guess, but not upsetting them with all this newfangled post-sixties disorientation is what matters.

I happen to agree with John at Liberal Rapture. His thoughts were exactly what occurred to me when this story first broke about what Harry Reid said. The issue of spoken language (and written language, IMO) as a mark of what societal class what inhabits is as old as Shaw’s Pygmalion. Eliza Doolittle understood that unless she spoke proper English she couldn’t even open a flower shop. It’s an issue of class, not race. Obama, who grew up in a privileged white household understood that from the outset. I’m convinced he counted on voters thinking that someone who sounded like them thought like them. What the Dems forgot is that he also sounds like all the well-spoken Republicans.

Negro was the preferred word (preferred by black people, that is) when I was young. Before that it was Colored Person. Now you can say Person of Color but not Colored Person and Negro somehow became an insult. Then it was Black and then all of a sudden one day it was African-American. None of these terms are insults or ever were. It’s a quite strange situation.

I always objected to African-American and don’t use it. For one thing, we went from a word describing race to one describing geographic origin, which is obscuring what we mean. Aren’t there white African-Americans? or Haitian-African-Americans? or black Englishmen? And further, when it was adopted it was said to be better because it corresponded to European-American or Asian-American. But I don’t call or consider myself a European-American. If we’re talking about race I’m white; if we’re talking about cultural background I’m Jewish.
We’re always hearing about how we should have the “first honest national dialogue about race”. It was said in Clinton’s term and in Obama’s. But it’s crap. No one wants to hear people’s honest opinions on this subject. Here’s one honest opinion of mine: I feel sometimes as though I’m being set up to be labeled a racist. Saying “Colored Person” makes me a racist but “Person of Color” is fine? Give me a break.

This conversation reminds me of “We are at war with Eastasia. We have always been at war with Eastasia.” Oh yeah? Well it’s news to me.

I was in grade school in the late 60’s, and I guarantee you the word Negro was in common use as a descriptive term. There was no Great Word Shift that I recall. Then again, I’m a California native, and have also read supposedly informed opinion that issues of race aren’t met with the same angst in the West as in the East and South, where demographics are different.

Since I’m not in the habit of drawing attention to people’s differences, particularly one as superficial as skin shade, by asking them what they’d prefer to be called, I guess I’d better check Wikipedia more often. I’m happy to use whatever term makes people feel comfortable. But frankly I find the repeated accusation by some that others are “ignorant and insensitive” for not having already known because you always did to be just as insensitive. Tolerance depends on understanding that ones own personal experience is not the only model for truth in the world.

Yep – I live in the south and have three good friends that are black – one male and two females. They don’t know each other. I am fortunate in that for more than a decade we have had many conversations about race and class issues. Apparently most white southerners are not approachable on the subject and I am originally not from here.

None of them like the term Africian American. They think it is contrived and silly. My male friend says he would prefer to be called an American Negro – but I think only if used by a friend. They have sometimes referred to me as EA, or GermoAmerican or Britican.

When I was a little kid back in the late 60’s. And it was close enough to ni**er that I never used it. My mother would have washed my mouth out with soap if I’d said the N word. Better not take a chance. I remember using the word “colored” when I was little but by the time I was in 5th or 6th grade, it was “black”.
I would say that it’s a nogoodnik word. If you’re still using it, you should probably stop no matter how old you are. The word became rude 40 years ago. Age isn’t an excuse.
That doesn’t make you a racist but it might make you look insensitive and careless.

I never use it. I don’t use language that I know will offend someone. But it absolutely was the preferred word until all of a sudden one day “black” was, around 1970. I went to a mostly black grade school int he 1950s and had black teachers, and that was the word everyone used. As in United Negro College Fund? I remember reading somewhere that it was chosen by black people early in the 20th Century to replace “Colored” – which had been the preferred term up to then – as in National Association of Colored People.

As I said, I wouldn’t use the word except in a historical context. But that doesn’t mean I don’t question that the respectful words keep becoming racist over and over. Anti-Semites may call me a “Yid” intending it as a pejorative, but it isn’t one – and I won’t give them the power to turn it into one. Should I stop calling myself a Jew because racists use it as an insult?

somebody better tell the NAACP not to use colored and someone better tell the UNCF to stop using Negro..

I do not believe it ever became rude, just old fashioned.
I had an AA BF who objected to “black” and a friend of his objected to “AA”. Who to believe?
we really need to stop being so politically correct and demanding people see things as we do. All my life I fought against racism and explored every inch of myself to make sure none existed. Then Obama called me a racist and his supporters called me a racist.
Screw it all, I am finished judging people for the words they use unless the are blatantly ugly.

It is interesting that Lott had to step down for what I would categorize as similar racists and insensitive and stupid comments. And then he was run out of town on a rail as he should have been.

Which means of course, we actually hold Republicans to a higher standard than we do Democrats. That is, we’re effectively saying Republicans are a higher quality of people and we hold them to a high standard whereas we expect this sort of behavior from Democrats so we will excuse it. Interesting.

I think what Lott said is quite a bit worse. He said that if Strom Thurmond had been elected President, the U.S. would be a better country. Here is the quote:

I want to say this about my state. When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years either.

Just to put it all in rhetorical perspective – two Democratic self definitions by DNC Chair Howard Dean in 2008:

“The Democratic Party is the party that is dedicated to Dr. King’s dream of equality and justice for everybody in America,” Dean said referring to the late civil rights icon Martin Luther King Jr. “The Democratic Party continues to be at the forefront of ensuring social and economic justice for all Americans. And in this election year, we will make history by electing either the first African-American or the first woman as president of the United States.”

Dean: I think we should court all voters and we haven’t courted Southern conservative working class folks and we need to do that. But you know our Party has been a no majority party for a long time. The fact is that the Democratic Party is made up of lots of different people and we’re all minorities in our party. That’s the way it’s been for a long, long time. We’re the party of opportunity. The demographic trends favor the Democrats because we are an inclusive, accepting party. And if you look at folks of color, even women, they’re more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, excuse me, than in the Republican Party because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hardworking people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.

The bozos running the GOP showed their colors during the Sotomayor confirmation process, practically asking her to beg their forgiveness for daring to be a Wise Latina and be proud of it. But, the Dems are no actual alternative to their crap. What Dean said was small-minded to begin with, to think of either party apparatus as that of a particular color. True, the GOP has a huge PR-problem when it comes to the issue of inclusiveness, and that’s one of the big reasons that keeps their party brand down even though right now conservatism seems to be on the rise. But, there is no party of the whites, there is a rigged system of Ds and Rs that is a system not of any race but of the bonus class.

Based on how the GOPers (especially the advisers) are going after Palin, I would dare say that both parties have issues with women in leadership position. I haven’t heard on man say that Governor Sanford ‘I went hiking bull’ being called dumb…and he is in my view, from every angle.

………my disgust of Democrats meter is on overload again…….. I do wonder, however, why Secretary Clinton doesn’t dump Bill or like Eleanor distance herself more formally before 2012 comes around they could still be political allies and friends very mature that model…

Macskill-Schumer well hopefully like Dodd the good former Democrats of MO and NY will ensure they are not reelected either..Reid IMO is done..and Ford star on this news will rise if he runs on I’m not beholding to Chuck AIG and Goldman et al..

…..easy now to understand why they wanted an empty suit in office..Schumer’s Wall Street Welfare and Obama’s Health Welfare vote buying at the top and bottom…….

…seriously, If they keep this up GWB won’t need to bother rehabilitating his legacy, if he could just have Cheney STFU, George will be missed come Nov… either way trying to run against Bush now is a no gain game

I think I will take Sec Clinton’s word for the fact that she loves the guy and they started a conversation all those years ago when they met and they have never stopped talking. Also, who the hell is going to seem very interesting once you have been married to President Bill Clinton.

despite indiscretions, President Clinton is a man of integrity and kindness,as far I can see.
One sex life is personal and have no place in any discussion.
It is between them.
and
like Obama in the debates, I agree with that smart lady who just commented before me.

Dodd got what he deserved.
He should never have spent the past two years before the Iowa caucus away from Connecticut. He was awol and none of us could get in contact with him. Combine that with his demanding Hillary drop out before the votes for cast, I cannot feel sorry for him. Dodd was repaid by Obama/Geithner by being thown under the bus.
McCaskill (or as we referred to her during the primary: “McCakil”) is on her way out. As of today, she would lose re-election. I will be glad when she is out the picture.

This is way too disgusting to watch. These political handlers and staffers are still trying to stay relevant by whispering in each other’s ear. Amazing how very little information is being asked about Obama’s people. It sounds like Obama rose above everything of course. This morning on MSNBC, the writers mention how the Clintons were certain the Obama campaign had gamed the Iowa Caucus and had made those accusations for months. If so, no reporter bothered to look into it? Guess they were too busy gossiping. When we get rid of the politicians next year, lets go after these media idiots at the same time.

The Clintons were exactly right about the Iowa caucuses—not to mention every other caucus held in 2008. And I think Axelrove learned that and drove it from his experience with Breck Boy in 04. You highlight the key question—why was the msm completely absent when it came to looking at Dem voter fraud in the caucus fraud and the Obama leadership of it?

And I totally agree with your conclusion—these political handlers and staffers—who would be and are NOTHING without the opportunity handed to them by their political makers—-are sleazy and slimy beyond belief. If I were ever to be a politician running for office, I would have some kind of no comment contract.

Bet O and Michelle made everyone in proximity to O and M sign a no comment contract. We saw too much yuck in that campaign not to know that behind the scenes there was plenty of dirt and muck.

I was watching Chris Wallace yesterday and he had Kaine on. I know that a party chair plays the “we’re fine, the president is perfect card”—that is his job. But I was struck by the framing Kaine did about how the Dem strategy is and will be to run on the strength of all the president’s achievements—saving the economy from the brink of disaster, health care reform, cash for clunkers, the stimulus bill. And I thought this guy does not have a clue that it is exactly these things that are driving down the 0’s poll numbers.

The financial bailout really goes to Bush/Paulson—assuming anyone thinks that is a winner. The stimulus bill and GM/Chrysler bailout is no winner—the one non bailout company—Ford—is the only one that appears to be turning around. And the stimulus bill is widely seen as failing and being a Dem pork barrel and hcr does not appear to be winning popularity contests.

More on Iowa from How Barack Obama played the race card and blamed Hillary Clinton.

Sean Wilentz, The New Republic Published: Wednesday, February 27, 2008

. First, in Iowa, the Obama camp aired radio ads patterned on the notorious “Harry and Louise” Republican propaganda from 1993, charging falsely that Senator Hillary Clinton’s health care proposal would “force those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it, punishing those who won’t fall in line.” In subsequent primary and caucus campaigns, the Obama campaign sent out millions of mailers, also featuring the “Harry and Louise” motif, falsely claiming that Clinton favored “punishing families who can’t afford health care in the first place.” A few bloggers and columnists, notably Paul Krugman in The New York Times, described the ads as distorting, but the national press corps mainly ignored them–until Clinton herself, seeing the fraudulent mailers reappear in Ohio over the past weekend, publicly denounced them.

The Obama mass mailings also attempt to appeal to Ohio’s labor vote by claiming that Clinton believed that the North American Free Trade Agreement, signed in 1993 by President Bill Clinton, was a “’boon’ to our economy.” More falsehood: In fact, Clinton had not said that; Newsday originally applied the word “boon” and has now noted the Obama campaign’s distortion. In this campaign, Clinton has called for a moratorium on all trade agreements until they are made consistent with labor and environmental standards–and account for the effect on jobs in the United States. Obama makes a big deal about how Bill Clinton signed NAFTA.

The first paragraph proves again how everything B0 said about Hillary was exactly what he was or what he was planning. His “Harry and Louise” commercial sounds eerily similar to the POS health ins. co bailout bill.

Sources say the Senate majority leader pushed against Jackson and Davis — both democratic congressmen from Illinois — and against Jones — the Illinois Senate president who is the political godfather of President-elect Barack Obama — because he did not believe the three men were electable. He feared losing the seat to a Republican in a future election.

Pigeon O’Brien, leading Rielle Hunter expert, thinks the first part of the riveting Heilemann/Halperin excerpt on the Edwards Family Horrorshow portrays Hunter too much as a stalker. That would fit in with what seems to be the obvious flaw in Game Change’s aides’ eye view:–the staffers on whom Heilemann and Halperin rely have an incentive to make themselves look good and leave out the parts that might prevent them from getting other jobs with other campaigns in the future.**…. In the Edwards case, it strains belief that a) Hunter was the first, or the sole John Edwards affair–only Chris Hitchens believes that–and that b) the candidate’s extra marital activities weren’t well known among staff. Yet in the Game Change excerpt, Edwards’ aides all seem to believe he’d “long ago made the decision not to fall into that trap.” It was only Hunter’s relentless determination that got him to stray! Right. … P.S.: O’Brien seems to expect that former fall guy Andrew Young’s forthcoming book will dispel this bit of self-serving fiction.

Could Harry Reid himself be the source for the explosive anecdote about his racially charged comments — ones that have created the biggest mess of his political lifetime?

Yep. Reid himself is the source of the anecdote, the Majority Leader’s office confirms. And this raises a bunch of questions about what happened here.

The authors’ note at the beginning of Game Change, the book about Campaign 2008 by Mark Halperin and John Heilemann, states clearly that any comments that appear “within quotation marks” come from “the speaker himself, someone who was present and heard the remark, contemporaneous notes, or transcripts.”

Holy–I need to sit down. Do you think every single time we send these clueless buffoons overseas to act as our national representatives they create international incidents that need to be hushed up? All hail the 11th dimensional chessmaster.

backtrack is Karl Rove’s wet dream. I see the comments about the book Game Change it seems that it does nothing but divide the dem party even more than it already is , but covers for backtrack. If even half the things written are true the new dem party deserves to fail. But my gut feeling is that it was written to hurt the dems even more than they are hurting themselves. That can only help the republican party.

WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

All the focus on the Reid quote takes the focus off the more important part-that Reid and the leading Dems wanted Obama as the nominee to stop Hillary. Ostensibly it was because she was “too polarizing to win”, but I think they were really afraid that she would win and demand that they behave like Democrats.

Sharpton, speaking on Fox News, defended Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid over a passage in the book in which he said Obama doesn’t have a “Negro dialect” unless he wants one. But the reverend would not give Clinton such a pass for his remark.

“I think that’s far more disturbing because this is someone seeking to stop Mr. Obama’s campaign and making a direct reference — I don’t know the context in which he said it — but that is far more disturbing to me than even the comments that were made by Mr. Reid,” Sharpton said.

Sharpton and other civil rights leaders last took on Clinton during the Democratic presidential primaries, after the former president compared Obama’s win in the South Carolina contest to Jesse Jackson’s victories in the state two decades earlier. Sharpton brought up the South Carolina flare-up Monday in discussing the “coffee” remark.

“If someone said that he would have been getting us coffee like that in the context they said he said it, that would be very offensive to me, and I would definitely take Mr. Clinton on as I did in South Carolina,” Sharpton said.

He said Clinton has not yet called him over the report, “So I guess I’ll have to make the call.”

Al Sharpton seems to be another Obot who can’t get over the primaries even though their guy won (through stealing and disenfranchisement). Sharpton won’t attack Reid because he backed Obama and now Obama owes Reid. Anyone who supported Obama is automatically deemed someone who can’t be racist by Obama protectors like Sharpton This has nothing to do with race and everything to do with politics. Sharpton isn’t going to touch Reid because the Obots are protecting him. Sharpton has pretty much shown himself to be a coward a race-baiter, and a two-faced liar his entire career.

After Hillary conceded, Dean came to San Francisco for a “unity” event aimed at pulling Hillary supporters into the fold. In between claiming that he’s always liked Hillary, having worked with her on her healthcare reform, he tossed out that “polling shows that 40% of men won’t vote for a woman for President under any circumstances.” Talk about fixing the facts around the policy. They had data to back up their misogyny. What convenient absolution.

A second failure of the excerpt, at least, is to answer the question “Just how wacky is Elizabeth?” and to get to the heart of her actual personality. True, she’s depicted as a snob in heavy denial who flies into inappropriate rages. But is that all? If she’s wacky enough, remember, Edwards’ decision to take up with another woman may be more explicable, if not excusable. …

They told me the radiation treatments would make me tired. They did. On the last day, they said, "It'll get worse before it gets better." They were right, but they didn't tell me how much worse. It's like my entire body is in open rebellion. Also, alien skin. Yikes. I really gotta post these links before it's suddenly September. […]